Doggie day care will open in $1.1M pet lodge

Two Toledo-area businessmen are betting that Ann Arbor dog owners want to pamper their pooches.

Construction of the 9,000-square-foot, two-story Karnik Pet Lodge on 1.2 acres behind K-Mart in the Maple Village shopping center began in March and should be completed by early- to mid-October.

It will be ready for the busy Thanksgiving and Christmas season when pet owners leave town, said co-owner Eric Russell said. Karnik will offer overnight boarding for dogs and cats along with doggie day care.

The $1.1 million building is a state-of-the-art facility that offers 74 "suites" for boarding dogs, a large indoor play area, natural light through a series of skylights and heating and air conditioning.

The suites measure six-by-eight feet, have two glass walls and the first floor suites open to the interior playground. The suites come with a patented design that keeps the floor clean using a system of running water through a trough around the edge. And there is no chain link fencing and no bars, said partner Ray Bauman.

"People love their pets," Bauman said. "They don't want to feel like they're putting them in a prison."

Russell and Bauman consider the Ann Arbor location a prototype for national expansion. While some national companies that offer pet boarding or that offer day care, Karnik Pet Lodge would be the first to offer an equal mix of both, Bauman said.

Karnik Pet Lodges, with two locations in the Toledo area, early this year expanded into the doggie day care business. The move turned a profit in just two months, Russell said. Karnik has offered pet boarding for 34 years, but the business is seasonal, with demand high during holidays and the summer, but falling off the rest of the year. Doggie day care will help smooth out revenue and meet burgeoning demand.

When the demand for day care exceeded projections in Toledo, the partners re-drafted their plans for the Ann Arbor site, making more space for day care. They expect it to account for half of revenue in Ann Arbor.

The partners predict that Ann Arbor - with an affluent population that demands specialized services - will ask for even more doggie day care than Toledo, Russell said.

"My partner has always wanted to expand the business. To find the right place, all we had to do was drive 45 minutes north," Russell said. "We believe this will be a good market. College towns maintain their economies through good times and bad times."

As construction of the Ann Arbor facility wraps up, the partners are looking to expand in the Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti area, Russell said.

National market research shows pet owners are willing to travel five miles for boarding and day care services. Rather than building a single larger facility, they hope to eventually have two locations in the area, Russell said. After that, they want to use a proprietorship model to expand.

They plan to eventually turn the Ann Arbor Karnik Pet Lodge over to an investor/proprietor, Bauman said. "The sky is the limit."